Monday, May 9, 2016

Moscow Not West Keeping Circassian Issue Very Much Alive

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 9 – Many in both
Russia and the West assumed that the Circassian issue, one that involves
recognition of the 1864 genocide and the restoration of the rights of the
Circassian people in their North Caucasus homeland, would fade after the end of
the Sochi Olympiad, an event Circassians around the world used to highlight
their plight.

But while news coverage of the
Circassians has certainly slipped in many places, their issues have not gone
away -- and not because of some Western conspiracy against Russia as some
pro-Kremlin writers think but rather because of Moscow’s continuing oppression of
Circassians in their North Caucasus homeland.

These issues are not going to
disappear not only for the more than a half million people in the North Caucasus
and more than five million in the diaspora but also for all those who care
about justice.And as a result of Moscow’s
clumsy and repressive policies, they are likely to become even more prominent
in the coming months.

That of course is not how most
Russian commentators see it. Instead, they use the standard Soviet-style
methods of blaming the victims of Moscow’s policies or presenting anything they
don’t like as being the result of a Western conspiracy against Russia in which
this or that group is encouraged to recognize that it is only a pawn in the
hands of others.

A classical new example of this approach
is an article by Yana Amelina of the Caucasus Geopolitical Club in “Russkaya
planeta” entitled “The Galvanized Corpse of ‘the Circassian Question’” (rusplt.ru/views/views_158.html).

She argues that “the events of the
last few months show that someone is trying to give new life to the so-called ‘Circassian
question’ which it appeared had finally been buried in the period of the preparation
for the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014” and that standing behind the Circassians
who are asking it again are “foreign forces” in Britain and Turkey.

The celebration for the sixth year
in a row of the Day of the Circassian Flag in Adygeya, Kabardino-Balkaria and
Karachayevo-Cherkessia with car processions, meetings and concerts, Amelina
says, is simply the latest example of efforts by the special services of
Britain, Turkey and their friends in Georgia to cause trouble for Russia.

“Officially,” she continues, these
events were intended to “’raise the interest of young people in their history.’”But in fact they were designed to attract
international attention and politicize an issue that shouldn’t be, the Russian
commentator continues.They had nothing
to do with promoting national self-identification.

According to Amelina, both Britain
and Turkey “have brought the Circassians only misfortunes – Britain by pushing
Circassian leaders into a hopeless struggle with the Russian Empire and Turkey
by using them exclusively in their interests and in fact wiping out their
national identity.” Unfortunately, she suggests, not all Circassians recognize
this.

She notes that a new Circassian
organization, Circassian Politics, has arisen in the US and that its leaders,
encouraged by Western money and special services, are increasingly making
aggressive toward Russia.“We do not
intend to ask anyone for anything anymore,” one of its leaders declared. “We
intend to struggle for our place in the sun by all lawful methods.”

The group is interesting in that it
seeks to promote Circassian refugee flows the resettlement of Circassians in
the West now that Moscow has largely blocked the return of this community to
its historical homeland, a pattern that Amelina suggests underscores the
connection of “radical Circassian activists with foreign special services.”

(For those who need what she
considers the truth on this, Amelina suggests that they read the highly
tendentious report prepared by the Russia Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI)
in advance of the Sochi Olympics entitled
“’The Circassian Question’ and the Foreign Factor” (riss.ru/events/2031/) and widely used by
pro-Kremlin commentators at the time.)

In brief, Amelina blames the usual
suspects – Western intelligence services – for re-animating the Circassian question.
But in fact, Moscow’s actions against the Circassians are playing a much larger
role. Among them in recent months are the following:

·Fears
in Adygeya that Moscow if it restarts its regional amalgamation campaign will
do away with that Circassian “matryoshka” republic and the only one that bears
the common name of all Circassians, whose self-designator is Adygey.

·Anger
that Moscow will now allow more Circassians from war-torn Syria to return to
their ancestral lands in the North Caucasus and that the Russian government has
overseen the worsening of economic conditions in Circassian lands.

If Russian officials continue to act in
this way, they and not any mythical hand of “Western special services” will
ensure that “the Circassian question” is going to remain open and important for
a long time to come.